Got a manuscript you can't crack? Stalled on your screenplay? In this four-week workshop, Johnny Shaw will teach you the art of the rewrite—where the real magic happens.

Your Instructor: Johnny Shaw, author of DOVE SEASON and BIG MARIA

Where: Online — Available everywhere!

When:
This class is not currently enrolling. To be notified when it is offered again, Click Here

Enrollment:
16 Students Maximum

Price: $350

Class Description

Writing is rewriting.

People say it all the time, and it's true. Your first draft, it's like a big block of stone. Huge and unwieldy, but full of hidden possibility. The true art of the process comes from chipping away at the stone—the extraneous sentences, the non-essential characters, the navel-gazing tangents—and finding the story.

Your story is the sculpture inside the rock.

And we've recruited Johnny Shaw to help you find it. He has an MFA in screenwriting and has lectured at Santa Barbara City College and UC Santa Barbara. He's the author of two highly-praised novels. One of which, Dove Season, was lauded by In the Woods author Tana French for "a smart, fluent rhythm and crackle that pull you forward, and it’s full of sharply observed and often very funny details. The author is excellent at creating a sense of place with a few deft strokes..."

Shaw knows how to edit his work down to a fine point--to find that sculpture inside the block of stone—and he'll show you how to do it too, in this four-week course that focuses on the skills necessary for a successful edit.

Do you have a manuscript you can't crack? Are you sitting on a screenplay that's ready for another round of edits? Then this workshop is for you.

This class includes:

In-depth lectures from Johnny on the art of rewriting

Critiques from Johnny and your fellow classmates, so you can bring your work to the next level

Ongoing discussion and Q&A's

What This Class Covers

Week 1: Writing is Rewriting

Now that you have the stone, it’s time to sculpt

Don’t change sentences in chapters you will eventually cut

Expanding and exploring themes to their fullest potential

Integrate the parts of your story to make a cohesive whole

Pacing & clarity

Week 2: The Craft of Story Structure

Know the rules before you break them

Traditional dramatic three-act structure

Aristotle. That’s right, I said it. Aristotle

Seeing the story from a distance; how the parts make a whole

Structure as a tool for the pacing and momentum of your story

Week 3: The Scene is the Thing

Three minutes is a long scene (and whatever the equivalent is in a novel)

Finding the conflict and focusing in on it

The writer’s objective vs. the characters’ objectives

The function of the scene as it ties to the whole and the theme

Week 4: Character and Dialogue

People doing stuff, not characters in scenes

To be original, make the characters act like real people

Don’t get cute with the dialogue

Read it out loud. Have someone read it to you

Good dialogue illuminates what that characters aren’t saying

It can always be faster, it can always be funnier (even if it’s dramatic)

Goals Of This Class

A clear and concise knowledge of traditional three-act story structure, and the ability to create and use that structure to go beyond that tradition.

Essential tools for scene construction and pacing, that help to imbue each moment in a scene with conflict and momentum, using clear objectives.

Keys to developing characters and writing dialogue that illuminate what the characters aren’t saying, as well as what they are.

Finding the thematic strengths of one’s story and getting the most from the themes and getting to the heart of the most important question you face as a writer: Why the story exists.

LitReactor offers a unique approach to a writing education: You study what you want, when you want, at your own pace. We bring in veteran authors and industry professionals to host classes covering a wide range of topics in an online environment that’s interactive and flexible. You get detailed feedback on your work and take part in discussions in a judgement-free zone. It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or an experienced writer, our workshops are about working together to achieve your writing goals.

Where do classes take place?
Entirely online. So, anywhere you have Internet access.

Are there certain times when the whole class needs to "meet" online?
Nope. Our students come from all over the globe. Everything is posted online and accessible 24/7. (We do occasionally schedule phone chats, but try to reach a consensus on timing.)

What does a typical class consist of?
It varies, but nearly all our classes include weekly lectures, homework assignments, peer reviews, critiques from instructors, and discussion forums.

How much experience do you need to take a class?
Beginner or pro, everyone is welcome. We encourage all skill levels.

And click here to explore a sample class that shows our layout and features.

About Your Instructor

Johnny Shaw is the author of the Spotted Owl Award–winning Jimmy Veeder Fiasco series of novels—including Plaster City and Dove Season—as well as the Anthony Award–winning adventure novel Big Maria. His new novel Floodgate...

Testimonials and Acclaim

"Johnny Shaw's 'The Next Draft' class was tremendously helpful. Like many writers, I prefer to write. Editing is necessary, but not as fun. Johnny's a great teacher of the craft of editing, explaining its importance in down-to-earth terms and providing useful techniques and approaches to help writers become good editors. I definitely recommend his class." —Erik A.

"Johnny Shaw's lesson's have an organized, poetic flow, full of clearly expressed ideas on the subject of a systematic approach to the next draft... To know where I'm going precisely lends itself to a positive outlook, and so I remain grateful to Johnny's course as I proceed from a retro-outline to condense my first draft, into the good finished novel it will be. His advice in terms of cutting and sometimes adding with the unity between theme-character-action-dialog in mind, and the stress on less is more scene into scene, will be with me throughout." —Tom

"The author is excellent at creating a sense of place with a few deft strokes (the depressing nursing-home chapel with posters of stained glass stuck to the wall), he moves effortlessly between dark comedy and moments that pack a real emotional punch, and he’s got a knack for off-kilter characters who are completely at home in their own personal corners of oddballdom." —Tana French (author of In the Woods and Broken Harbor)

"With wry humor and mellifluous prose, Johnny Shaw skillfully navigates the knife’s edge balance between a meditation on mortality and a harrowing crime drama" —Bill Cameron (author of County Line and Day One)

“Johnny Shaw is a talented writer with a genuine feel for desert speak. His debut, Dove Season, offers some cross-border issues of the day. A dying father’s last wish quickly turns into a deadly adventure for all involved. Shaw has writing chops deserving of future attention.” —Charlie Shella

"Shaw is a wizard with language. He makes his characters and locales sing with a laconic, lonely, achingly lovely bittersweet song.” —Hal Ackerman

“Dove Season is dark and funny, graceful and profane, with beating-heart characters and a setting as vivid as a scorpion sting on a dusty wrist. Debut author Johnny Shaw is a welcome new voice. I'm already looking forward to Jimmy Veeder's next fiasco.” —Sean Doolittle (Thriller Award-winning author of Lake Country)

“This is one you’ll soon be recommending to your friends. It’s lighthearted but not lightweight, funny as hell but never frivolous. Shaw writes like the bastard son of Donald Westlake and Richard Stark: There’s crime, and criminals, but there’s also a deep vein of good humor that makes Shaw’s writing sparkle. Combine that with his talent for creating memorable characters (the supporting cast, including a mute, severed head, often threatens to steal the show), and you get one of the best reads in recent memory, an adventure story that might just make you mist up every once and awhile, especially during the book’s moving finale.” —Mystery Scene Magazine